CPS Defendants: Fairness for All Strategy 2025
Introduction
Our commitment to ensuring that the right person is prosecuted for the right offence and protecting the rights of suspects and defendants underpins our CPS Defendants: Fairness for All Strategy 2025. This strategy represents a clear articulation of the role that the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) plays in contributing to a fair and just system that prosecutes criminal investigations whilst enabling those who may face additional barriers or with additional needs to participate fully in the criminal justice process.
Fairness to victims, suspects, and defendants is at the heart of our overarching five-year strategy – CPS 2025 – and is enshrined in our Code for Crown Prosecutors. We are committed to working with partners to serve victims and witnesses and uphold the rights of suspects and defendants in a way that is fair and understood by all communities, and to ensure that everyone is treated fairly by the criminal justice system.
Through the National Disclosure Improvement Plan (NDIP) and the Joint Operational Improvement Board, which is chaired by senior leaders from the CPS, National Police Chiefs’ Council and College of Policing and was created to drive up standards in the criminal justice system, we have played a vital role in improving the way we make decisions about our casework, the way in which we communicate and the way that we collaborate and tackle disclosure, which we know is essential in securing justice for victims, witnesses, suspects and defendants and the public.
We know that there are some areas where suspects and defendants may face challenges when involved in the criminal justice system and, in this strategy, we are focusing on three areas: mental health, youth justice and the proportionality of our decision making. These areas have been the subject of recent inspections and reviews which highlighted key areas for change.
Whilst specific teams within the CPS are focusing on addressing the detailed findings in these reviews, and ongoing research, this strategy will ensure that these areas are at the forefront of our prosecution decision making processes.
Mental Health
The 2021 Criminal Justice Joint Inspection concluded that there was poor support for people with mental health conditions as they progress through the criminal justice system in England and Wales. A CPS examination of nearly 400 cases in 2017 suggested that about one in five cases involved a victim, witness, or defendant with a mental health condition. This strategy sets out the role we believe we can play in helping to identify when a suspect or defendant may have a mental health condition and ensuring necessary support is in place, and individual needs are understood.
A third of people in police custody have some form of mental health difficulty.
*2021 Criminal Justice Joint Inspection
Youth Justice
In carrying out the Serious Youth Crime review inspectors found that more needed to be done when prosecuting youth casework. The review found that only 35% of cases received a proper and proportionate initial or post-sending review and that a more consistent approach to the use of youth justice specialists, to deliver charging advice and to conduct post charge reviews, should have a positive impact on the quality of youth casework. Our strategy sets out our ambition to achieve this.
In the year ending March 2020 there was an average of just over 780 children in custody at any one time during the year.
Proportionality
The Lammy Review found that the outcomes of CPS charging decisions were broadly proportionate. However, it highlighted evidence of disproportionality throughout the criminal justice system. Proportionality is a common theme across all casework, and there is no room for complacency. In the interests of monitoring disproportionality, we have commissioned a substantial independent academic review of disproportionality in the outcomes of our decision-making to look at both national and local trends.
Just over a quarter of the UK prison population are from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds.
*National statistics: Ethnicity and the Criminal Justice System, 2020: Published 2 December 2021
We’ll use the findings of this review, alongside our annual Action Plan, to drive change across the justice system where it is needed, and we’ll continue to embrace accountability in all areas of our work. This important review complements our Inclusion and Community Engagement Strategy 2025 and should be read alongside the CPS commitments to victims and witnesses, who remain at the heart of our casework.
The CPS Defendants: Fairness for All Strategy 2025 sets out how we’ll work to ensure our decisions are fair and proportionate, and has been developed within the context of our overall five-year strategy: CPS 2025.
This strategy provides our high-level vision and every year significant steps towards achieving these aims will be included in our annual Action Plan, and ongoing Disproportionality Research. As we make progress in these areas, we will look to prioritise work supporting suspects and defendants with other protected characteristics, including women and girls.
Baljit Ubhey OBE
Director of Strategy & Policy
Grace Ononiwu CBE
Director of Legal Services
Our People
Aim:
Our people are supported to make fair and proportionate decisions.
Outcomes:
- Prosecutors understand unconscious bias, myths, and stereotypes, and take these issues into account as appropriate in casework and decision-making.
- All prosecutors are upskilled and trained in youth casework.
- A cadre of youth justice specialists, with enhanced training, advise on and prosecute the most complex youth cases.
- A network of Mental Health Single Points of Contact and a network of Area Youth Justice Leads provide a central point of contact and additional expert support, to assist in the coordination of casework and to share learning.
Digital Capability
Aim:
Through data collection we can better understand the characteristics of suspects and defendants and identify where additional support for a defendant may be required.
Outcomes:
- Our digital case management systems allow us to flag a case where a suspect or defendant has a mental health condition or disorder.
- The CPS website provides readily accessible information, in clear and simple language, on the legal process for suspects and defendants, providing a digital guide through the prosecution process and signposting useful additional resources.
- Data insights inform future planning, improving our response to suspects and defendants.
- We support conducting virtual hearings where appropriate, in line with guidelines from HM Courts and Tribunals Service and the judiciary, whilst continually reviewing the impact of different types of court hearings on suspects and defendants with additional needs.
Strategic Partnerships
Aim:
We work together with partners, providing operational insight and advocating reform where needed.
Outcomes:
- CPS insights, and those developed through partnership learning, on the fair treatment of suspects and defendants lead to improvements in policy, legislation, and the criminal justice process.
- Timely and focused information sharing between criminal justice partners, and other agencies e.g. social services, to deliver fair outcomes for suspects and defendants.
- CPS legal and operational expertise influence improvements in processes for unrepresented suspects and defendants.
- Targeted joint working leads to fairer processes and treatment for children, those with mental health needs, and suspects and defendants from minority ethnic groups.
Casework Quality
Aim:
Decision making is fair and proportionate and made in a timely manner.
Outcomes:
- We monitor the proportionality of our decision making, swiftly acting where issues are identified, informing policy work based on data analysis and research findings.
- We proactively seek all relevant information to inform timely charging and case management decisions and to identify where a defendant may require additional support in the prosecution process.
- In recognition that diversion is a positive and appropriate outcome for many defendants, particularly children and females, the CPS uses Out of Court Disposals effectively.
- Charging decisions informed by early engagement with partners enable the diversion of appropriate cases out of the criminal justice system.
- A new approach to youth casework is implemented, delivering high-quality decision making in cases involving children.
Public Confidence
Aim:
Diverse groups shape the way we work, ensuring suspects and defendants are treated fairly and with respect.
Outcomes:
- Our understanding of communities and third sector groups is reflected in our policies and procedures for supporting suspects and defendants through the criminal justice process.
- Future thinking on emerging trends and issues, including linkages between age, neurodevelopment, ethnicity, and sex, inform our policy development.
- The CPS considers findings resulting from academic research, inspections or reviews of CPS processes and policies to continuously improve prosecution policy and practice.
- We are a leading voice in ensuring suspects and defendants are treated fairly by the criminal justice system.